Herr_Garrett on 19/2/2009 at 07:09
I never have or had any problems with remembering the names. Altough that might suggest that I'm as insane as Tolkien...
Quote Posted by Queue
Hasn't anyone ever suggested that Tolkien might actually have been utterly insane?
...altough I wouldn't aspire that high. In fact, everybody who does actually believe in the face of all contrary evidence that the world and its inhabitants are basically good, is insane. Like me. Mwuahahahhhahhha!
Actually, Tolkien was trying to carry on the quest of the group T.C.B.S., a circle of literary friends, who wanted to create a mythology for England. After the first World War, which
only he survived (imagine the shock and horror of it) from the T.C.B.S., he felt compelled to finish their task which the Great War brutally broke.
And, boy, did he manage. Has any of you read the Eddar? Or the Greek myths? Or, for that matter, the
Iliad or the
Odyssey? Precisely how many names does anyone have there? Hector, for one, has at least twenty. Ulysses much, much more.
The problem is not with Tolkien, or in his works; it's that people nowadays don't have time for this sort of stuff. I know only two people apart from myself who did actually sit down and read Homer's works because they were genuinely interested, and not as a set reading or something. We (or you) have an extremely different mental structure than people even a hundred years ago. And that's not Tolkien's fault.
fett on 19/2/2009 at 12:40
That's what people usually miss about Tolkein. He wasn't trying to write a fantasy novel, he was trying to create a mythology for Britian. Those two missions don't have to be mutually exclusive, but they do require a different approach from the reader.
Renzatic on 19/2/2009 at 17:16
Quote Posted by Queue
15,864 different elves....
Jesus Christ! Hasn't anyone ever suggested that Tolkien might actually have been utterly insane?
Back in the day when these books were written, the major forms of entertaining yourself consisted mainly of smoking pipes and staving off Tuberculosis (by smoking the pipe). Tolkien didn't write about 15,864 different Elves because he was crazy, it was because he didn't have anything else to do.
Also burlesque shows.
Kolya on 19/2/2009 at 17:29
I see Queue has used up his two tags on this thread already.
Also burlesque shows. I'd so been there, instead of creating a mythology, oxymorons!
Queue on 19/2/2009 at 17:48
Only the one.
Herr_Garrett on 19/2/2009 at 19:44
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Back in the day when these books were written, the major forms of entertaining yourself consisted mainly of smoking pipes and staving off Tuberculosis (by smoking the pipe). Tolkien didn't write about 15,864 different Elves because he was crazy, it was because he didn't have anything else to do.
Also burlesque shows.
What with being a university lecturer, an active philologist and great contributor to both lingustics and literature, a happy father of four children, a socially active man, an editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, a philosopher and many things besides, I can just
hear him thinking "Damn, I'm bored... Let's make some Elves!"
Seriously, have you ever heard or read anything about him?
Kolya on 19/2/2009 at 20:17
Scary how he managed to keep up this travesty while being a complete nutso closet elven lover.
Stitch on 19/2/2009 at 20:55
Quote Posted by Herr_Garrett
What with being a university lecturer, an active philologist and great contributor to both lingustics and literature, a happy father of four children, a socially active man, an editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, a philosopher and many things besides,
you forgot staving off TB with a pipe
Queue on 19/2/2009 at 21:02
And a pointed stick.
Thor on 19/2/2009 at 21:16
I actually read the LotR triology and "Hobbit" a few years back. It was a nice and sometimes pretty immersing books. Also, for the most part, they weren't so childish and fairytailish and although it could had more advanced writing, i liked it anyway.
Anyway, on topic, what's the new stuff getting released? Related to LotR? Heh, interesting, no matter what it is. I'm such a stupid person.
